The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1887-05-25
POPULAR SCIENCE.

Natural gas has been put to new use
round about Pittsburg. A market gar
dener is raising asparagus in the open air
by its aid and proposes to carry his ex-
periments to beds of other vegetables
hitherto grown in greenhouses.
At the Berlin aquarium DR.. Otto
Hermes has studied luminous bacillus.
In the air the organism emits blush
green phosphorence, which can be COM
municated to dead fishes and to sea
water, but not to fresh water. At
Temperature of about one hundred de-
gress the luminous property is lost.
1t is an error to suppose that severe
winters are destructive Of insect life.
According to Mr.. McLachlan, an English
entomologist, Larvae may be frozen until
as brittle as rotten sticks, In which con-
dition they can scarcely be said to live,
but on the return of warm weather they
revive quite uninjured by their freezing.
1t is noteworthy fact that butterflies
and humble bees have been found almost
as close to the North Pole as man has
ever approached.
An English paper gives an account OF
new ammunition which is being adopted
by the German Army, and which is about
to be manufactured under British patents
at Millwall. The bullet is partly of lead
and partly of steel, and is said to have q
great penetrative power, and it is shot
from the barrel by compressed powder.
The new cartridg dges will keep; for any
length of time without deterioration and
with safety, for the explosive need not
be attached to them until they are re-
quired for use. -.
Schweinfurth has mentioned that toy
hoes are used as money by the Mann
Mans, of Africa. Tippoo Tip now de-
scribes a remarkable tribe of skilled
copper-workers on the Congo, among
whom copper spears form the standard
of value. Enormous spear-heads, some
six feet in length, serve as currency.
Like bank notes with us, these spears
are given q conventional value, the
large ones, though of small intrinsic
worth, being reckoned at one thousand
dollars in the purchase of ivory.
Edison's phonograph is distanced by q
Frenchman's invention of photographed
sound. BY speaking into a photophone
transmitter, which consists Of highly
polished diaphragm, rejecting a ray of
light, this ray of light is set into vibra-
ton and photograph is made of it on
travelling band of sensitized paper.
Now comes the wonderful part. Ii the
image of this Photographic tracing Is
projected by means of an electric arc
or oxyhydrogen light upon selenium
receiver, the original speech is then
heard.
Enormous snowfakes are recorded as
having fallen January y 1887. A writer
in one of the magazines publishes
measurements Of single fakes two and a
half inches in length, two and three
fourths of an inch in length, two and
three-foWths;. BY two. and a=half and
three inches thick, and even three and a
half and four inches in length. When
melted the largest one yielded sixteen
drops of water, and many gave fourteen
or fifteen drops. The storm was only a
few minutes in duration. These unique
results can be accounted for by the fact
that the temperature was S2.60 Fahren-
heit, and hence several ordinary flakes
mig ght become congealed to form larger
one.
The London Lancet records remark
able case of transmission of disease from
mother to child. The woman was .ad-
mitted to the hospital suffering from
acute pneumonia the left lung-al-
ready four days advanced. The tenn
lerature was 1885 degrees. That even.
ing she was delivered of a child and
ultimately recovered. The child, how
ever, died twenty-four hours later with
every symptom of pneumonia. The
post-mortem examination showed that
the whole of the left lung of the child
was also affected and had undergone the
wcll-known acute pneumonia consolida-
ton. This is believed to be the first
case recorded of transmission of this dis
ease.